US Army Expanding the Capabilities of Its Cyber Force

Joe Gould

Defense News

October 15, 2014

Army Eyes Coordinated Land-Cyber Missions

This image shows what US intelligence officials said was a Syrian nuclear reactor, destroyed in an Israeli strike that is believed to have included a cyber component. (AFP)

WASHINGTON — Seven years ago, the Israeli military’s Operation Orchard is believed to have employed an electronic warfare-delivered cyber attack to shut down Syrian anti-air defenses before its jets bombed Syria’s Al Kibar nuclear reactor.

US Army officials say they are working toward a capability that is potentially similar, synchronizing land power and cyber capabilities for tactical effects on a future battlefield.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno said in an interview that the service’s new operating concept calls for the synchronization of air, sea, land and cyberspace. “You have to be able to integrate and synchronize that on the ground.”

The Army is looking closely at gaining national agency-level cyber support for brigades wherever they are deployed. Corps level and below would receive support for tactical cyber, including planners at headquarters and capabilities at brigade level, according to Brig. Gen. Paul Nakasone, commander of cyber National Mission Force.

“I suspect as the year progresses, we will see elements at the brigade combat team level doing all three missions of support to their operations,” Nakasone said, a reference to the mission areas of cyber defense, cyber attack and cyber support.

The brigade commander would not necessarily own the units conducting the operations, but would be supported by them.

A cyber attack with tactical, local effect, may not be intended to have the same kind of impact as a strategic-level attack, Odierno said, though discussions on the issue are ongoing.

“At the tactical level you are not going to try to take down a country’s infrastructure, but what you are going to do, potentially, maybe is be able to take out their radar system or take out their … air defense, you know, using cyber,” Odierno said.

“I think as we start to integrate this, actually the authorities might be easier to get at a tactical level instead of strategic, but those are things we are going to have to work through.”

Odierno said he is interested in how cyber warfare might be used in conjunction with influence operations, or lethal operations.

Retired Lt. Gen. George Flynn, former director of joint force development with the Joint Staff, said it’s important to provide a common operating picture for cyber, electronic warfare, and kinetic or non kinetic fires, ostensibly to bridge the various levels engaged in an operation. ■